Greece doesn't want to be sidelined in EU-minister

[pampango]

Source: Reuters

Greek Interior Minister Tassos Giannitsis appealed to Germany on Tuesday to ensure his country was not sidelined in Europe on account of the euro zone debt crisis and said Europe needed closer economic integration.

The minister said the overwhelming majority of Greeks wanted to stay part of Europe and to keep the euro as their currency.

"It would be an enormous historic mistake if a whole nation ... which has shown and will continue to show enormous strength and which is viewed as an integral part of Europe were sidelined because of today's systematic euro crisis," he said in a speech at the South-Eastern Europe Society in Berlin.

Giannitsis said Europe needed a dual strategy of budget consolidation and expansive Keynesian policies and he stressed the importance of closer European integration. "Today the introduction of stricter economic and fiscal governance seems to be the necessary extension of the currency integration," he said.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/eurozone-greece-germany-idUSL5E7MT5M920111129

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Translation:

" I will be only too glad to serve up the sovereignty of Greece in exchange for what my overlords pay me."

"Under the proposals, the European Union will help insure the debts of countries in crisis,
but in return it will be given veto powers over the budgets of the countries in question. "
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-reasons-the-crisis-isnt-over-2011-11-29?dist=beforebell

[pampango]

3. Europeans have willingly given up "sovereignty" (tariffs/border controls) for a "greater good".

National sovereignty does not rank as highly with many Europeans as does an open, peaceful and prosperous continent. If they decide that common financial control is an acceptable price to pay for a united continent using a single currency, that is their decision to make.

Many Americans, including liberals, would not do what European liberals have done over the decades by trading aspects of national sovereignty for a peaceful and prosperous continent.

[JackRiddler]

2. Such an overwhelming majority supports the technocrats' coup and austerity plan...

That they decided not even to hold a vote on the plan. Superfluous, right?